HOI4 Dev Diary - Acclimatization and Special Forces

[Orinsul]

would it be possible to make it being acclimatised effects what supplies a squad requires?
(like for a mod with desert and winter uniforms, when acclimatised cold, troops starting needing winter uniforms?)

 

[mjb2k]

Ok, so, after discussing this with distinguished members of the Hoi4 MP community, an experienced player came up with a workaround to this.

You can get around the limitation for SF by doing the following:

Train masses of 2 width infantry, deploy them at 20% training and then change the template to a 50 width pure light tank with all equipment disabled. It will cost some manpower, but you will be able to have a very good batallion count, allowing you to field SF in big amounts.

Why 2 widths infantry? The smallest division you can make and train fast. Why convert to 50 width light tanks? Because they are easy to research for template purposes (just research great war tanks) and they cost 500 manpower for each batallion compared to 1000 for infantry. They also make a nice sound when selected. The only problem is that it will mess up the UI stockpile if you are actually using light tanks.

It remains to be seen, but it is quite likely that you will be able to delete those divions after deploying your SF troops without any negative effects for your already deployed SF troops, making the manpower cost for this workaround a temporary thing.

Or you know, you could make a 2 width infantry, have it only be equipped 20% and trained 20% then deploy it, make them in groups of 1,344 divisions and change them to 10 width tanks (45 army xp) and turn off the equipment. Then train your 24 14-4 marines and do the same thing over and over again.

I don't really see why paradox made a SF limit... It's not like all the single player people out there have any kind of competition to deal with anyways... Admit it people, the AI is so bad you don't need SF... Granted Paradox usually balances it based on how fun it is for single player people, well this update I don't see how this changes anything at all for a single player gamer... The acclimatization is just a combat modifier which is utterly pointless for SP given that you can rofl stomp the Soviet Union with a simple battle plan and only 7-2s... And the special forces in SP is about as cruddy as it sounds, you don't need tanks, you don't need special forces to beat the AI paradox. I feel like this update was in some way to balance MP (the acclimatization effect will have a great impact in MP which I think is cool) but then again, limiting SFs to the point where you can have at best, 10 marines per country, how do the allies commence a d-day? Paradox if you put a 40 width infantry division on a port and you only have a couple of marines to take Normandy you literally won't land. The AI doesn't defend Normandy so for a player it's still extremely easy to d-day in 1940 and take Germany out before the Soviets even get involved in SP. But in MP it's a completely different story and you need to take all kind of actions including invading around the port to take it over. With only a couple of marines it's utterly impossible. My only guess is you've added decisions/focuses to increase special forces availability for both the axis and allies which we'll have to see if it's enough or not.

 

[KalZakath]

Even if your units are not acclimatized to either arctic or desert, they still need time to acclimatize to either arctic or desert. If they are acclimatized to the wrong thing, it just takes longer.

I suspect that if podcat's statements are what I think they are, it will be easier for some countries, in some situations, to acclimatize faster than an invader. That might make a difference during a historical Barbarossa that runs on too long or if Bagration starts too late.

Definitely this - a population living in the climate would be ready for the climate.

Wondering also if they are going to tie into the national decisions - where for example you can choose Winter is Coming! and get a short increase in consumer goods factories but also an increase in acclimatization to winter fighting due to having winter gear available.

 

[Farquarsen]

@D Inqu and @podcat I read that but it is as clear as mud. Does it mean the percentage goes up but what is the drag? The US should have the ability to dedicate 20% to what the game calls special forces. Perhaps marines can only be had if you have a navy of say 10 capital ships. I think that is historical. Romania with marines, 40 divisions of them, is laughable.

 

[Lanf]

Perhaps additional an additional support company to affect acclimatisation would be nice or a tech to improve the current ones to provide bonuses to it would work well to reflect the challenge of providing appropriate extreme weather gear.

 

[Farquarsen]

Or you know, you could make a 2 width infantry, have it only be equipped 20% and trained 20% then deploy it, make them in groups of 1,344 divisions and change them to 10 width tanks (45 army xp) and turn off the equipment. Then train your 24 14-4 marines and do the same thing over and over again.

I don't really see why paradox made a SF limit... It's not like all the single player people out there have any kind of competition to deal with anyways... Admit it people, the AI is so bad you don't need SF... Granted Paradox usually balances it based on how fun it is for single player people, well this update I don't see how this changes anything at all for a single player gamer... The acclimatization is just a combat modifier which is utterly pointless for SP given that you can rofl stomp the Soviet Union with a simple battle plan and only 7-2s... And the special forces in SP is about as cruddy as it sounds, you don't need tanks, you don't need special forces to beat the AI paradox. I feel like this update was in some way to balance MP (the acclimatization effect will have a great impact in MP which I think is cool) but then again, limiting SFs to the point where you can have at best, 10 marines per country, how do the allies commence a d-day? Paradox if you put a 40 width infantry division on a port and you only have a couple of marines to take Normandy you literally won't land. The AI doesn't defend Normandy so for a player it's still extremely easy to d-day in 1940 and take Germany out before the Soviets even get involved in SP. But in MP it's a completely different story and you need to take all kind of actions including invading around the port to take it over. With only a couple of marines it's utterly impossible. My only guess is you've added decisions/focuses to increase special forces availability for both the axis and allies which we'll have to see if it's enough or not.

This gamey cheat work-around should not be necessary. There should be a limit in the game based on Officers and manpower that should give varying limits to the special forces that can be recruited per country.

 

[mjb2k]

This gamey cheat work-around should not be necessary. There should be a limit in the game based on Officers and manpower that should give varying limits to the special forces that can be recruited per country.

You're right it shouldn't be necessary. Remove the caps Paradox...

 

[Meglok]

We'll see but I won't be suprised if troop shuffling does them no favours in regards to acclimatisation.

Not only this, but the penalty appears to be higher attrition. The ai can't handle equipment production now for all the divisions it insists upon making. And they are adding more equipment losses?

Between this and slapping an arbitrary cap on SF that wasn't a needed change compared to ao many other issues I am starting to become uneasy about the direction of 1.5.

 

[Praetorian44]

Once again, great changes coming in this patch. When are we going to get a release date? Can we at least get a hint, please? Will it be this year?

 

[Zwirbaum]

Once again, great changes coming in this patch. When are we going to get a release date? Can we at least get a hint, please? Will it be this year?

Waking the Tiger will be released in 2018.

 

[Sourlol]

The US had 98 Divisions by wars' end.

17 Armored
2 Cav
67 ID
5 Para
6 Marine
1 Mountain

That makes 12 / 98 SF. That works out to 12.24%

This doesnt account for division sizes. I'm sure that would net a slightly different figure. However, based on this one data point..and taking into consideration just how tiny and well equipped the US Army was as compared to the German Army or Red Army or Imperial Japanese Army i think this fits.

In game terms, the US put a considerable amount of her manpower and Industrial Capacity into her Navy and Airforce as compared to her land army. She chose to specialize her forces getting relatively fewer overall but relatively more skilled and equipped than her opponent.

The UK also put much more energy into her Navy and Air Force--relatively speaking.

11 Armored
1 Cav
43 ID
2 Para
1 Marine
5 Colonial
(AA Divisions / Groups)

that makes 63, if I can count

so 3/63 is 4.76%

Germany is a bit harder to put together a list for due to lots of re-org

44 Armored
5 light Arm
4 Cav
320 ID
18 Para
16 Mountain

that makes 407

34/407 = 8.35%

That isnt to say the US and UK didnt have special purpose "Elite" forces within divisions or attached to them. Rangers, SAS, UDT, pathfinders etc. But the combat duties SAS and UDT performed are beneath the scope of this game. They should be handled in a Decisive Action system or other such mechanism. Directly representing them on the field of battle as division counters makes little sense.

Full on Divisional scale Niche combat is what we are discussing here.
If this were modern day, it would be completely inappropriate to model Seal Team 6 as its own division counter. Hell even all of the SEALs put together don't equal a division.

Mountain Warfare, Amphibious Warfare, Para-dropping, and Arctic Warfare (a lot of overlap with Mountain Warfare) are your big ones. Hell even jungles are largely so pervasive when you encounter them you dont have specialized troops for it--everyone just learns how to fight in it.

I dont know about JAP, RUS, or Italy, but I imagine their proportion of SF is between 4-15%.

 

[Dman1791]

Will SF be getting (minor) buffs due to their increased rarity, or is this more due to them already being stronger? Asking because I tended to make 'elite' inf divisions out of a mix of SF and SPART.

 

[Ethereld]

People here need to chill out about the cap on Special Forces and read carefully the Dev Diary.

The cap is 5% of your total battalions, so if USA have 150 7/2 divisions in 1943 then they could field at the very least 67 Special Forces battalions. With that number you could create 8 marine divisions with 8 marines battalions and some artillery each. I know this is a very low number, but then we have this:

Special forces are trained and equipped for conditions that ordinary soldiers aren’t expected to excel in. The first tech will give them a boost to acclimatization speed. Afterwards, the tree splits. One option is to train your special forces harder, to improve their skills and their ability to fight for longer before having to be resupplied. The other option is to expand the special forces training programs to accept more recruits. Your special forces will be more numerous, but come with more drag and not quite as high speed. In the end though, they will still be elite forces and will be able to develop training to make them even more skilled in fighting in the harshest of conditions.

From the Dev Diary we can know that THERE IS A TECH THAT GIVE YOU MORE SF. Yes, we don't know the exact effects of this tech, but if it increases your SF by 5% or 10% then you could have 16 or 24 marine divisions instead of 8 and I think that this would be an acceptable number. The other option is to have a smaller but more elite force of Special Forces, so instead of 16 divisions you might end with 8 elite special forces divisions. Of course, all of this is speculation, it is just too early to say anything about how SF will play in 1.5

 

[Russian Bias lmao]

There better be a huge improvement in non-marine division naval invasions. Otherwise prepare for A LOT of rage from the MP community. The cap is ridiculously low.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

The US had 98 Divisions by wars' end.
...
Mountain Warfare, Amphibious Warfare, Para-dropping, and Arctic Warfare (a lot of overlap with Mountain Warfare) are your big ones. Hell even jungles are largely so pervasive when you encounter them you dont have specialized troops for it--everyone just learns how to fight in it.

I dont know about JAP, RUS, or Italy, but I imagine their proportion of SF is between 4-15%.

Thank you for doing this. I think it proves that 5% as a starting number is sufficient, assuming those focus/tech upgrades give boosts upto 10%.

 

[pete_ts]

@podcat

How does one d-day when you have 1300 infantry battalions and only 24 40 width marines in MP?

No marines partook in the Normandy landings. However USMC fielded six divisions + support and defense battalions totaling 485.00 troops compared to US Army that fielded almost 100 divisions so the 5% ratio seems about right. However, the Army also fielded 3 airborne divisions and a mountain division so that makes the ratio a bit on the low side.

US Military Personnel (1939-1945)

Year Army Navy Marines Coast Guard Total
1939 189,839 125,202 19,432 334,473
1940 269,023 160,997 28,345 458,365
1941 1,462,315 284,427 54,359 1,801,101
1942 3,075,608 640,570 142,613 56,716* 3,915,507
1943 6,994,472 1,741,750 308,523 151,167 9,195,912
1944 7,994,750 2,981,365 475,604 171,749 11,623,468
1945 8,267,958 3,380,817 474,680 85,783 12,209,238

 

[mjb2k]

Please remember people there is a significant difference between a video game to real life... Yes the amount of special forces was around 10% for USA but without marines in this game you literally cannot naval invade into a 40 width division without them. They provide major landing bonuses and Infantry and tanks take major penalties. Same thing goes for attacking into Mountains, Infantry will never break in this game because 40% attack means a 10 width could defend against a 40 width division in a mountain tile. Unless Infantry or tanks see a significant bonus to naval invading (or removes the debuffs) then d-daying will virtually be impossible.

 

[mjb2k]

No marines partook in the Normandy landings. However USMC fielded six divisions + support and defense battalions totaling 485.00 troops compared to US Army that fielded almost 100 divisions so the 5% ratio seems about right. However, the Army also fielded 3 airborne divisions and a mountain division so that makes the ratio a bit on the low side.

US Military Personnel (1939-1945)

Year Army Navy Marines Coast Guard Total
1939 189,839 125,202 19,432 334,473
1940 269,023 160,997 28,345 458,365
1941 1,462,315 284,427 54,359 1,801,101
1942 3,075,608 640,570 142,613 56,716* 3,915,507
1943 6,994,472 1,741,750 308,523 151,167 9,195,912
1944 7,994,750 2,981,365 475,604 171,749 11,623,468
1945 8,267,958 3,380,817 474,680 85,783 12,209,238

That doesn't answer my question relative to the game.

 

[Ethereld]

Please remember people there is a significant difference between a video game to real life... Yes the amount of special forces was around 10% for USA but without marines in this game you literally cannot naval invade into a 40 width division without them. They provide major landing bonuses and Infantry and tanks take major penalties. Same thing goes for attacking into Mountains, Infantry will never break in this game because 40% attack means a 10 width could defend against a 40 width division in a mountain tile. Unless Infantry or tanks see a significant bonus to naval invading (or removes the debuffs) then d-daying will virtually be impossible.

A division defending a beachhead may defeat another division with more numbers, in this you're right. But if 6 or 8 infantry divisions with close air and naval support are attacking a single division in a naval invasion they may win easily. If the German player has proved unable to defeat the Soviet Union in 1943-1944 and has lost Africa to the Allies then the most likely situation is that the combined numbers of USA/UK/Commonwealth Nations easily surpass Germany 5 to 1 in numbers and resources in the western front. If Germany have the numbers to defend all the french coast against the superior numbers of the allies then someone did something very wrong.

But remember that the D-Day in HOI4 terms would be Germany defending the french coast with 10 width divisions against multiple invasions with 3-4 divisions each, paratroopers in the back and waves of men once a single beachhead is secure. All of this while 80% of your combat divisions are occupied in Russia, 10% more in Italy and the rest with garrison duty in France

 

[Farquarsen]

I based my analysis on the lowest common denominator, the battalion, as does the DD. Compare battalions, not divisions and you will see that 5% is inadequate whether you are discussing game realities or real warfare.